About Eddie Fender and why he was a dick to Miles
I first started this post in response to something, but it got so long I decided against inflicting it on OP. This is very long and very meandering and the form is kinda weird, as a warning. It's also kinda spoilery for Ace Attorney Investigations 2.
When we first start playing AAI2 and are introduced to "Ace Attorney Eddie Fender," it's true he doesn't come across as very likeable. The first thing he says to Miles is basically "Oh, look! Here comes Manfred von Karma," and the game happens three years after the truth about DL-6 came out. That's incredibly low, very petty, cruel even. He does start off as a dick to Miles, unfair on him until he gradually realises he isn't as bad as he thought, and as he starts warming up to Miles we start warming up to him.
But also... I kind of get it.
Like... Imagine you're 19 years old. Your boss just died in a sudden and shocking murder. You inherit the law firm even though you haven't even passed the bar yet. You're grieving as you keep working hard to become an attorney, now without the guidance you used to have. Maybe you even blame yourself a little - after all, you worked on that case too, you were likely there for the trial, you left both Edgeworths to take that elevator by themselves. Had things played out differently you would have been there, too.
Did you think of your boss's son, in the middle of this whirlwind? Probably a little, but you're a 19 year-old law student. You're nowhere near a suitable place in your life to even think about fostering a kid. Besides, Gregory Edgeworth was your boss. Someone you greatly admired and whose death you will never stop mourning, but still just your boss.
(It's unclear how well Eddie knew Miles. Enough for Miles to recognise him instantly, but certainly not as close as Miles and Phoenix were.)
You take it on yourself to continue the work he left behind, to help the clients Gregory can no longer help. For ten years you try your best to uphold the reputation and the values of his firm and name, and every day you witness a little more how corrupt the system really is.
Then, one day, you start hearing about this young new prosecuting upstart. Passed the bar at 20 and already has the legal world in his pocket. Rumours of forged evidence, backstreet deals, manipulated witnesses. Not only is that just like the whole lot of them, the tactics you became so familiar with over the years - no, it sounds painfully, specifically familiar to that one long, drawn-out case, the last one you worked with Gregory. It turns out the young prodigy is the student and protégé of Mr. Perfection himself, the man who never lost a case in thirty-five years, even though he should have lost against you ten years ago if the world was even a little fair. You would hate the boy for that alone, but on top of that he's also the son of the mentor you lost, the son of the man you both used to admire so very much.
And that hurts. That none of Gregory's legacy lived on in his son. That this sweet, kind boy, who Gregory always used to worry about not making any friends, became a parody of all they used to despise.
Perhaps you even get to see him. You catch a glance of him in the courthouse corridor as he passes you by without so much as a nod to acknowledge you, or you stumble upon a picture in the same paper that struck Phoenix Wright so deeply. You see that damn suit. That damn smirk. That damn waggly finger. His features may have something of Gregory but everything in him screams von Karma. He's spent a decade trying to shape himself into him, and it shows.
Prosecutors are a privileged bunch, and the Edgeworth kid grew up into a downright brat. Entitled. Rude. Arrogant. Obsessed with his fucking perfect record. You hear he goes around cutting the salaries of detectives that make a tenth of what he does and insulting the opposing counsel in court. He became the worst of them all, taught by the worst of them all, he is everything Gregory fought against and everything you hate.
Why would you want to associate with that? Why would you ever think he is not perfectly fine where he is, with his cushy office and his cushy sports car and his doubtlessly cushy pay?
A couple years later you hear he's been arrested for murder. Maybe you follow the trial, maybe you only see the headlines after everything, after DL-6 is finally solved. Honestly, that's when you start having a reason to reach out. When, had you been less embittered and jaded by the thanklessness of your job, you might have wondered what it was like for him to grow up in the shadow of his father's murderer. You might have been stricken with compassion and horror at the thought of fifteen years spent in crushing guilt, believing he killed the father he used to love so much. You might have empathised, despite your contempt for von Karma, with how his ward might feel to be so cruelly betrayed, thrice over, by the man who raised him since he was nine, who taught him everything before throwing him away like a piece of used junk.
But you still think of how he was like a son to von Karma, of how he got to spend fifteen years in wealth, following a shiny, easy, corrupt new path while you grieved and desperately tried to keep the pieces of your shared dream together. You think of how uneasy Gregory seemed with the idea of von Karma as a teacher, you think of how eager Miles seemed to follow in his footsteps and how much Gregory would have hated it. You think of the many defendants this boy callously condemned with barely a thought, just like his mentor. Of how he may not have his father's blood on his hands, but with the way he acts you'd think he had his murderer's in his veins. And you really, really don't want to deal with any of that.
You think, somewhat unfairly, that maybe Miles ought to have seen it coming. It's not like it's much of a secret that Manfred von Karma is a piece of shit, and good riddance to him.
Three years later, you actually have to interact with him again. It's been 18 years since you last saw him in his father's shadow, looking at him like he hung the stars in the sky, back when everything was so simple for the three of you. It's been 3 years since the truth about his oh-so-esteemed mentor was uncovered. He still wears the cravat. His brow is still furrowed, his eyes are still piercing.
But slowly, begrudgingly, you talk to him. You start realising he actually has some honour to him. That he's not really the Demon Prosecutor the papers made him out to be, that maybe you misjudged him a little bit, in you grief-stricken, angry bitterness. That maybe he can be trusted, after all, with his father's legacy.
Why would you think he ever needed saving?
